Mission Produce (NASDAQ: AVO) sells avocados, mangos, and blueberries to retailers, wholesalers, and foodservice companies across the US and international markets.
The stock is up about 15% so far this year, and Wall Street is paying attention amid new insider purchases of the stock. On July 9, 2026, Globalharvest Holdings Venture, a 10% owner of Mission Produce, piled into 592,957 shares of the company worth about $7.9 million. This wasn’t a one-off purchase. The same insider bought 650,415 shares just three days earlier and another 687,222 shares on July 8.
Another important insider buy came from director Jay Pack, who bought 40,000 shares for about $484,000 at the end of last month. Why might insiders be loading up on the stock?
Can Mission Produce (AVO) Shares Spike In The Coming Months?
Mission Produce’s Q2 results were weak, with revenue down about 24% year over year after a 36% drop in avocado prices tied to a supply glut. But despite analyst skepticism, management repeatedly said on the earnings call that these headwinds were temporary.
The company said recent low avocado prices were an exception, and it normally maintains strong per-unit margins regardless of pricing conditions. They said a temporary imbalance in April between supply and demand for core fruit sizes hurt margins. The company also completed its acquisition of Calavo Growers, a $430 million deal that brings prepared foods like guacamole and salsas into Mission Produce’s product lineup. Management expects about $25 million in annualized cost synergies from the Calavo deal within 18 months.
For fiscal Q3, the company expects industry avocado volumes to rise 5% to 10% year over year, while pricing falls about 15% year over year. Analyst questions on the call focused on weather risk, especially El Niño, but management said repeatedly that the Q2 margin dynamics were temporary and are now behind the company. This points to a possible rebound once these short-term pressures clear, and it lines up with the wave of insider buying seen since June.
A total of 20 hedge funds had stakes in Mission Produce as of the end of the second quarter, according to Insider Monkey’s proprietary database of about 900 funds.
The Bear Case and Risks
Despite this, bears have a strong argument too. They point to the company’s $430 million acquisition of Calavo and say the deal might not play out as planned, since it adds massive debt of over $200 million. They also say the synergy math is weak: without the projected $25 million in cost savings, Mission Produce actually ends up slightly worse off on valuation than it already was, so the entire cheap-stock case rests on synergies that aren’t guaranteed.
But the core bear case is this: avocado volumes are surging due to oversupply from Mexico, and as a result, prices are falling. If Mexican harvests stay this strong, profitability for Mission Produce could keep getting hammered well into future quarters.
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